Into the Woods

Once you legalize deep-frying in your kitchen (as I recently did), you’re on a slippery slope to — falafel.

I probably thought of falafel as one of those city foods that can be made only after centuries of practice, and only in a commercial kitchen, like bagels. With falafel, it’s not like that at all. They’re dead easy — street food, really. I had never had homemade falafel before. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever had them anywhere before other than San Francisco and New York City. Maybe London.

There’s no need for me to suggest a recipe here. There are many on the web — just Google. I used store-bought parsley as the herb in this batch. If it were high summer, I’d have some homegrown choices of herbs. But who wants to stand over a hot pot of oil in high summer, even if there are fresh herbs?

Most recipes will warn you that you cannot use canned, or precooked, chickpeas. Soak the chickpeas well, then throw them into a food processor with the other ingredients. Shape them into balls, and cook them in hot oil. Easy peasy. And probably addictive.